Recently, my friend Steven Siwek interviewed me for his “Future of the Church” web series. His first question was “When you hear that phrase–‘future of the church’–what comes to your mind?”

My response, in part, was:

I think the word that comes to mind is “hope.” You know, there are a lot of people today who are really discouraged about the future of the Church. They feel like the Church is dwindling. And in some ways it is. When you look at the statistics, you see it all over the place…

[But] I think along with that we’ve seen the death of cultural Christianity. You look years ago, and if you wanted to hold public office–if you wanted to be a part of the school board or run for superintendent or mayor or for dog catcher–you had to be a member of a certain church. That was how you identified yourself as upstanding….I think we couldn’t get our hands around what being a Christian was. I think non-believers couldn’t really understand what a Christian looked like because there were so many people who claimed that title who maybe didn’t live a lifestyle that was consonant with what it meant to follow Jesus Christ.

What I think now we’re having with these shifts is a falling away of that. You might even say–even though it is a strong word–a purification of the church. So that people who claim the name of Christ, many of them or more of them might actually follow Jesus Christ. And it allows us to in some ways to be a minority but to be prophetic, to be pure, to be the people of God who we were called to be. To represent Christ in a way that is going to look a little more radical, it’s going to look a little more countercultural. But I think it will, in the long run, represent Christ better on the whole to a secular culture.

For my full answer, check out the full interview in the video above. In it, I also answer questions about what amazes me most about Christ, where I see the sexuality debates heading, how to navigate moral gray areas, and much more.

You will ask, “Was it painful for me to read this book?” The answer is yes…First, it exposes sins and weaknesses and imperfections in me. Second, it is not always clear which of its criticisms attach to me and the church I love. Third, this is my son, and he is writing out of his own sorrows.

Here, Barnabas discusses the false intimacy he experienced growing up, what he thought of his brother’s excommunication, and the role his mother played in the household.

RNS: You say that growing up the son of a well-known pastor was like “being a sinner on display.” What is the worst sin you got caught in? Any arrests or pregnancies?

BP: I was a pretty good kid growing up, at least in terms of illegal activity and the like. The big things I got in trouble for were mainly being argumentative–with everyone–and lying. I got myself in some sticky spots both ways. My biggest struggles came after I moved out of the house when the little lies of childhood stopped being so little.

RNS: You describe how pastors’ kids often experience a “false intimacy.” What did this look like for you? Do you still struggle with this?

Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, says that pastors who voted for Barack Obama in the last election should resign.

“Any evangelical leader — by which I mean someone like a minister or an elder — who voted for Obama the second time, is not qualified for the office he holds, and should resign that office,” Wilson wrote in a blog post dated October 14. “Unless and until he repents of how he is thinking about the challenges confronting our nation, he should not be entrusted with the care of souls.”

Voting for Barack Obama, Wilson said, “exhibits a fundamental condition of cluelessness” because the President is pro-choice.

Forty-two percent of Protestants and 50% of Catholics voted for Barack Obama in 2012, according to Pew Research. This includes 95% of black Protestants.

Not only must the dignity of human life be upheld by white and black Christian leaders alike, to the extent we may allow any differences, it should be to expect a greater vehemence in opposing abortion (in the person of its advocates and enablers) from black leaders. This is because it is their people who are being disproportionately targeted by the white Sangerites. And a black Christian leader who cannot identify a Sangerite is a rabbit leader who does not know what a hawk looks like.

He later likened voting for Barack Obama to German leaders voting for Hitler.

But there is more to Rob’s thinking than that. His views have nuance and texture that will doubtlessly influence many American Christians. That’s why I wanted to sit down with him and discuss his recent work. The following is part two of my interview:

JM: You say that a lot of people believe in a “tribal God.” What do you mean by that?

RB: I’m talking about that sense among lots of people that God is on our side and is for us, and is therefore against everybody else. There’s strong allegiance to the tribe at the expense of a God who loves everybody. I think a lot of people experienced this God in church. They visited a church, and it felt like the God of that church had a language and culture and customs and dress and insider terminology. And they felt that if there is a Creator of the universe—a singular, benevolent source of all this life that we all know to be life—that God must be bigger than this. I think a lot of people have had that experience.

JM: These dominant perceptions of God, you say in your book, aren’t just failing us. In many cases are causing us harm? How are they harmful?

RB: As a pastor, I’ve interacted with lots of people who knew something was true and knew it was good and knew it was helpful, but they’ve been given some sort of religious system of labels and categories. They were told that that this thing right in front of them is not “Christian.” So therefore, they are to keep it at arms length. Whether it’s science, literature, art, or we could go down the list. My experience has been that lots of people were handed a framework that simply doesn’t work.

I’ve met people, for example, who were told counseling is bad because they have the Bible. You don’t need anything more than the Bible. And they have issues in which they desperately need a trained, professional counselor to help them walk through their own history and struggle and pain. And literally rattling around in their head is this message that counseling is bad. And that is really, really destructive.

JM: Your critics claim that you sometimes try to adapt your perception of God based on how people are offended. Is there a point at which Rob Bell says, “This far and no farther?” That we’ve somehow arrived at right thinking?

RB: I’m a Christian and so the cross and the resurrection and this explosive and compelling Jesus movement that moved across the ages is where it’s at for me. So I’m interested in following this Jesus and seeing what he’s up to next and seeing all of the surprises that are just around the corner. So when someone talks about “this far, and no farther,” for me the center has always been Jesus.

When I was young, I had a series of powerful experiences with the resurrected Jesus that have continued to this day. This awareness that God loves us and that we’re going to be okay and we can trust that God really is like this. And the people that I meet are carrying all sorts of pain and brokenness from what the world is really like. And I’ve seen again and again what happens when people open themselves up and trust that this Jesus message really is true and can be trusted. So that’s what has always been interesting to me. And what a critic somewhere says has never been that interesting.

According to The New York Times, Rob Bell is “one of the most influential Christian leaders in the country.” More than 2.5 million of his Nooma films have been sold, thousands flock to arenas to hear him speak, and he even earned a coveted spot in 2011’s “TIME 100.” Depending on your theological leanings, Rob’s influence is an occasion for either rejoicing or lamentation. While some claim that he represents the future of American Christianity, others think that his more progressive ideas have strayed so far from orthodox Christianity that they are actually heretical. His 2011 book, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who EverLived, for example, challenged the notion that those who do not believe in Christ will spend eternity separated from God in hell.

Today, Rob has released a new book titled, What We Talk About When We Talk About God. The text across the back of the book asks, “Will God be left behind?” In it, Rob attempts to survey popular language and ideas applied to God by Christians in light of a culture that is finding those conceptions increasingly irrelevant. Unlike some of his past critics, I read Rob’s new book from cover to cover. I enjoyed many parts of it, while others made me squirm in my seat a little. Because I am committed to dialoguing with thought leaders across the spectrum of Christianity through “On Faith & Culture,” I took some time to sit down with Rob and discuss his most recent work. The following is part one of my interview:

RB: You know, for me, it’s always been that there’s way too much in my head and heart to write about. For me, the problem has never been what I should write about. It’s always been what, of all of these ideas, I should actually give my full energy to. So, there’s generally four or five books rattling around in there and the ideas that form the backbone of this new book, they’ve been percolating for a while. Generally, I just pick the idea that seems to be the closest to the surface and jump in. If there’s any particular reason, it was probably just a lot of conversations with people where I kept thinking this book could really help.

JM: You talk about God being a bit like Oldsmobiles, something for the past or for then, not now. In your mind, does God change or do humans just learn more about who God has always been?

RB: Yes, I think that we are, as humans, endlessly learning and growing in our awareness of the God who has always been there. So B, in your two options.

JM: Though you believe the Enlightenment was a good thing in some ways, you say, “as reason and logic became more and more prominent, other ways of knowing became less emphasized.” What are other ways of knowing, other than the intellect, that you think have been lost among Christians and need to be recovered?

Book cover courtesy of HarperOne

RB: I wasn’t specifically writing about Christians there. I was writing about those of us in the Western world as a whole. But I might answer by pointing to the enduring power of music and how people will talk about an album that really got them through a tough time or a song that really spoke to them and the lyrics have almost nothing to do with that person’s life situation. You know what I mean? There’s this sense in which as that musicreally spoke to them powerfully.

Often times, knowledge bypasses this sort of ridged, rational analysis that we are so used to running everything through, and it speaks right to our hearts. There’s something beautiful and it inspires us and yet when asked to articulate why, we end up talking about how we like the colors or we like the shape or we like the form of that sculpture. I think that would be an example in which there is truth, but it is not in a rational, logical, unfolding linear sort of way.

But few markers are as revealing as recent polls about public opinion toward the leaders of these distrusted institutions. According to a recent Gallup Poll, about half of Americans highly rated the honesty or ethical standards of pastors. Among the more trusted professions were doctors, engineers, teachers, and dentists. The silver lining is that pastors received much higher marks then bankers, lawyers, car salespeople, and members of Congress.

A new Barna poll released this month adds another dimension to the conversation about the declining sway of clergy. It found that Americans believe professional athletes have more influence on society than do faith leaders by a three-to-one margin. The report showed the following professional athletes polled most favorably:

* Tim Tebow, pro football player
83% of Americans are aware of Tebow; 73% feel favorably about his public discussion of faith

More cynical Christians will undoubtedly see these statistics are further proof that America is in moral decline. Such reductionism allows us to avoid asking whether or not we actually deserve the low marks we’re receiving. Could it be that what non-believers are seeing and hearing from Christian communities and leaders is actually turning them away? And if so, what can we do to turn the tide of public disdain?

I think we’d do well to see this as an opportunity instead of a harbinger of America’s God-forsaken future. We’ve entered a moment where those who claim to be Christians and those who desire to lead them must redouble their efforts to win the trust, respect, and admiration of the general public. The way we speak, the way we love, and the way we react to those elements of culture that offend us has perhaps never been more important.